Title: Where You End and I Start to Begin

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Mick/Josef

Genres: Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: Teen

Summary: With Josef it went past mere instinct, the animal in Mick was possessive but affectionate too, both he had to tamper down. Maybe it was the friendship between them, electrified to a thousand volts.

A/N: Written for Fandom Stocking for Tarlanx's Stocking. Also for h/c_bingo amnesty for the prompt 'poisoning.'

Mick scanned the horizon but didn't turn a blind eye to the crumbling buildings behind them either. Los Angeles was all but gone, the city crumbled to dust and what was left a place for ghosts to inhabit. Considering it was the only place Mick had ever truly called home, there was an ache left in his heart as he walked away from the faded city of angels.

He still had a pounding headache from the building collapsing in on him, as well as relatively minor cuts and scrapes from when he had shielded Josef from the brunt of the impact. Waking up had been the hardest part of all, that and trying to figure out what the hell had happened. Mick hid behind the thickest wall that was still standing for too much time, trying to gage the direction of the sun. He was vulnerable and had to avoid any further weaknesses with Josef's captors nearby, whom Mick prayed fervently were dead. The next step had been finding Josef, who was buried underneath a pile of rubble and coughing harshly as Mick leaned over him and wiped the dust off his face, trying to aid him in drawing in a decent breath of the dust choked air.

Mick had pulled him up and provided a wall at his friend's back, patting his back occasionally for a good five minutes to try to get Josef to breathe easier. Since vampires weren't human they couldn't die from lack of oxygen, but they could pass out or cause further damage to themselves, putting a strain on Josef's weakened system. While he afforded Josef precious time to adjust, he checked him over discreetly and boiled with rage as he came across the slashes across his back, ones that weren't healing. Silver. Mick growled, running a possessive hand through Josef's hair, pulling him closer. His hand blindly found more gashes on Josef's chest, still sluggishly leaking blood. He traced them with his fingers, determining their depth and severity, which luckily was minimal.

The relief that Josef would be alright once he was able to heal hit him like a punch to the gut. No relief had been so palpable since rescuing Beth.

"Mick…." He had shushed him, partly because he didn't want to attract anymore attention to themselves than they had to and also because Josef was having a hard enough time breathing. The other vampire shifted and tried to get up and Mick helped him, keeping a steady hand on his friend's shoulder to make sure Josef could keep his balance before releasing him. "Guess I'm the damsel this time."

"Quiet," Mick told him, ears straining to make out cries, screams, the sound of someone shifting nearby. Nothing. No one. It seemed unbelievable that they were the only ones to survive the collapse, but Mick took in the four bodies strewn haphazardly on the floor, no heartbeats. Regardless, he slipped a hand around the other vampire's waist, pulling Josef to him again, breathing in his scent, feeling the distinct pull of the sire bond between them. It felt almost physical sometimes.

"Whoa, easy on the hands there. Precious cargo here."

Mick had snorted. Josef was precious cargo, his to protect. Josef was his maker now, his sire after his recent brush with humanity. Josef he stuck close to and protected always. With Coraline it had been different; there had been the sire bond but it lacked intimacy and power. He had still been protective of her, yet his hatred of her couldn't keep that protective instinct at the forefront of his mind. With Josef it went past mere instinct, the animal in Mick was possessive but affectionate too, both he had to tamper down. Maybe it was the friendship between them, electrified to a thousand volts. He would have ripped Josef's captors to shreds if he had gotten the chance.

He would have carried Josef out of the building, but he settled for his friend leaning heavily on him as they walked through the streets of the city. Mick had never felt such deep silence: the absence of life. Nothing could have convinced him more to leave. They weren't safe where they were.

Josef's rapid pulse grounded him then more than ever.

Mick stopped walking, allowing Josef to catch up. They weren't far enough away from the city for the fear not to pull at Mick, but the physical state of Josef was starting to unnerve him. That and the fact that he hadn't said much since Mick had found him.

His hand brushed against Josef's shoulder. "You okay?"

"Peachy. Thanks for asking." Josef coughed, a thin trail of blood trickling out of his mouth. Mick swore and ripped a part of his shirt, wiping the blood away. He would need to find clean clothes to wrap around Josef's wounds, preferably gauze, but it was the healing that Mick was more worried about. Wounds caused by silver were tricky. Silver was toxic to their kind, and who knew how long Josef had held up under the torture inflicted upon him. Mick needed to sit him down and take a good look at the damage.

For the time being Mick brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit, quickly bringing it under Josef's nose. Vampire blood wouldn't sustain Josef, who needed to feed and soon, but it might speed up the healing process and slow down the hunger so he could get through the oncoming day. Mick hadn't thought he would need to coax his friend, then again, Josef didn't seem quite like himself. "You need to drink, Josef. No more of this toughing it, bullshit. At the rate you're going I'll be carrying you by the end of the night."

Josef looked up at him then, but he didn't immediately come back with his usual snarky comment. His hands grasped Mick's wrist and brought it up toward his parted lips, and Mick could feel the sting of Josef's saliva against his skin, drinking his fill and then closing Mick's punctures before they could heal on their own. That made Mick angry but the small amount of relief that crossed Josef's taut face filled him with warmth.

Mick took in the other vampire's bloodshot eyes and the deep shadows underneath them. No more than two days. Two days of torment. Fresh blood was soaking through Josef's shirt and Mick immediately put a hand to it, trying to stop the blood flow. Josef couldn't lose much more and they already weren't gaining enough ground. Mick wished now that they had stayed where he had found Josef, tortured and cut open and disoriented but recognizing Mick through their bond regardless. Josef hadn't wasted his one precious moment to cling to Mick before the roof caved and the walls bore in on them. Mick had searched frantically for the beat of Josef's heart and found it just before everything faded to black, erratic but there. He vaguely registered the blood coating his hands and the scent of silver on the air. He had just held Josef in his arms until the end.

Yet it hadn't been the end. Now Mick had to face the facts, and his instincts.

You have a sire bond now, Mick attempted to convince himself. That means the bond between you and Josef is stronger than it ever was before. These feelings are normal.

So why wasn't he convinced?

"You, carrying me?" Josef grinned, reassuring Mick despite the long period of silence. "You big, strong man you." His voice sounded drained, like it was taking him too much effort to put words together into sentences. Mick winced at the state of him. It was his fault that he hadn't been able to find Josef sooner, that he hadn't been able to protect him from their own kind until the building literally starting falling down at them. It had been luck that had saved them, luck that had brought him back to Josef.

His bloody fingers twisted and turned at the buttons on Josef's shirt and he gently palpitated the other vampire's gashes. There was no more light than there had been in that building, so he relied once more on touch. "You tell me if you're about to fall over, okay?"

Josef pushed Mick's questing hands away. "Stop your worrying. I've been through worse than this and you know it. It's gonna take a lot more than some vampire wannabees and their silver toys to keep me down for long. You're not getting rid of me that easily, Mick." Vampire wannabees or not, they had been vampires. They had been strong enough and smart enough to catch Josef off guard, kidnap him and subject him to two days of torture. If Mick had gotten there ten minutes later, if Josef hadn't been breathing….

"Josef," Mick started, biting his lip. "If anything would have happened to you…."

"You know how sire bonds work, Mick. If your sire dies then you're still frolicking on the asphalt." He turned around to face an abandoned and crumbling Los Angeles, frowning. "Or not."

Mick raged at his friend's obliviousness. Josef had to know how much he meant to Mick all these years and he was choosing to ignore that in favor of hiding. Mick wouldn't take hiding right now. "You honestly think I give a damn about that? What the hell would I have done if I hadn't found you in time, Josef?"

Josef grabbed Mick's hands, fingernails digging into his wrists, holding Mick in place. "I'll tell you what you would have done. You would have moved on. You would have been just fine, Mick." Mick's heart cracked at his friend's conviction. Josef never told him how he felt, hiding away that emotional side of him even though Mick knew it was there, even though Mick knew Josef cared for him. It was why they were so different but worked, why no one understood their friendship except the two of them. And maybe Beth, Mick smiled. Josef's grip on his wrists loosened and Mick pulled his hands away, bringing them back to cup Josef's face, forcing the other vampire to look at him. Josef could have easily pulled away, or turned his head, but his pain filled eyes latched onto Mick's for no reason Mick could conjure.

Only their bond. Josef had to feel it too. Feel their strength.

"Only I wouldn't have been, Josef. I wish you would understand that."

His hands slipped down to grasp Josef's shoulders. He focused on the city behind them, searching for any movement. The murmur startled him back to their plight. "I do." Mick found Josef's eyes again, could see the light and life in them. "I didn't know you felt the same way. You and Beth…."

Nothing could stop him from kissing Josef then. One hand cupped the back of Josef's head and the other instinctively, comfortably wrapped around Josef's waist again. Josef's own hands pressed into Mick's back, palms digging into Mick's skin, hard breathless real. For long moments after the kiss they simply clung to each other and breathed in the other's scent, letting it wrap around them. The bond squirmed between them and lit up their skin like molten fire; it was as if they were sharing each other's skin. Josef's love washed over him like a wave of warm orange light and Mick knew then he could never go back to being human. He could never give Josef up. "It was always you, Josef. I promise. I never lost sight of us." He breathed hard, trying to catch his breath. "It was the lack of a sire bond between us. I see that now. It was what you wanted. It was what I wanted."

Josef didn't speak, nose burrowing against the side of Mick's neck. Mick could feel the energy leaking out of him and the arm around Josef's waist tightened. He pulled him into the dark confines of a building nearby. The sun would be up soon and Josef needed the shade more than he did; the heat would only make the hunger more present. The windows were blackened on the first floor but Mick steered clear of them nonetheless until he found a room with only one small window. He lowered them both to the floor, wishing that he could spread out a blanket to lay Josef down on. Anything to make him more comfortable.

"I ever tell you that you think too much for a vampire?" Josef's thumb brushed against Mick's forehead, as if smoothing out the stress lines Mick knew were there. Even though his Josef was safe. The other vampire was unusually affectionate when he hadn't fed in a while, which Mick had only witnessed once or twice in the long time he had known Josef, and Mick had to admit that he enjoyed him this way. He had pushed Josef away intimately for so long and he just didn't want to do it anymore. Mick pulled off his jacket and spread it out on the floor, then he took advantage of Josef's vulnerability and moved him, gingerly, until he was flat on his back on the concrete, Mick's jacket underneath him. Josef grinned knowingly up at him. "Well well well, someone wants his way tonight."

"No, just you."

Regardless of his want of Josef right then and there, Mick followed his protective instincts and turned him on his side, unbuttoning the other vampire's shirt and reexamining the wounds on his chest and back. Saliva would help, for now. Josef hissed when Mick pressed his tongue to the angry red gashes, one hand trying to push him away, trying to protect Mick from the poison. Mick didn't care, it was still in Josef's system, underneath his struggling to heal skin and Mick had to get it out. He moved from one to the other, after each one gathering the saliva on his burning tongue and leaning over to spit outside the window.

When he was done Josef was breathing heavily, eyes closing. "Thanks, Mick, you sure know how to work wonders with that tongue," he said breathlessly, and Mick hummed in response. He unbuttoned his own shirt quickly and spooned Josef from behind, double checking that they were far enough away from the window. Body heat wasn't a factor since vampires couldn't produce it, but it was more about closeness than anything else, that and Josef seemed to breathe much easier.

Mick ran his hand through the other vampire's hair for several moments before rubbing the back of Josef's neck with his thumb. He smoothed a hand over Josef's back but was careful to avoid the worst areas. Josef breathed out heavily in appreciation and leaned back heavily against him, catching Mick off guard. Only for a moment. He buried his head in the back of Josef's neck and breathed in his scent, chuckling at Josef's murmured: "Not a drug you can get high off of, Mick." He begged to differ, that and Josef just smelled too damn good.

Smelled like home. Family.

Lover.

Josef didn't seem to mind the attention. He turned onto his other side and rested his head on Mick's chest. Mick steered clear of his healing wounds, settled for running a hand up and down Josef's arm and listening to the early morning around them. Tomorrow they would find food and better shelter.

For now Mick's prize was holding Josef in his arms again, reveling in the bond growing between them.

FIN